the 2nd association it resonates is the highly consumption-driven society we live in. in my area (coastal, urban southern california) i'm surrounded by 2 distinct lifestyles. there's the majority: seems like 95% of the local population who are renters, driving luxury cars, sporting fancy clothes, jewelry, hairdos, etc but obviously living paycheck to paycheck as exemplified by hardly a day somebody or the other is spotted  getting their car repo'ed by a camera crew. the rarer are the landlords, who in this area seem to be of mostly asian demographics (chinese, koreans, japanese) who live obviously very frugally: old 80s model sedan, oldfashion business cloths, always eating simple meal from home, seemingly never splurging $$$ other than into expanding their portfolio), my observance is relatively very few landlords in the area own relatively huge portfolios, each.with the advent of these infomercials and the internet (ie, BP) more and more people want to get a 'piece of the REI pie' and more power to them. there does seem to be this dream of rags to riches and while its ok to dream, do most people actually expect their life to turn around like that, as portrayed in most of the infomercials or even in the everyday setting where the masses living paycheck to paycheck, are spending their last expendable dollars not on depositing into savings acount, but blowing $20 on scratchies etc. in summary, is my observation reminds me of my days when i worked on wall st and the 'ra trace' was so obvious with dime a dozen stock brokers makin 6fig salaries at some point but blowing it on recreational drugs apparently costing thousands of dollars a pop to the point the next week they are broke again and that $ wasnt invested but wasted.  

I'm reading the forums, listening to the podcasts every moment I get, reading REI & related books (just wrapped up Rich Dad / Poor Dad and am deep into Getting Things Done).  

We will be rich when we master that.Frank

@Rich Bravo  Welcome to BP.

I would have to say, hands down, that Rich Dad Poor Dad has been the most influential as it opened my eyes to the myriad opportunities that exist in this business.  

Around the Great Depression, when the land was worn out from reparative corn and cotton farming it was prime time to scoop up large tracts of land from people that were land rich, cash poor.I think these laws in SC goes back to the CCC days as during these same times companies like West Virginia Pulp and Paper (Westvaco), Weyerhaeuser and others came buying up worn out and abandoned farm land planting trees and did not want to be locked out of their timber land investment.

Thanks,Rich

-Rich

To get the total picture of both sides of the story I recommend adding "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and "Cash Flow Quadrants" to your reading list along with “Total Money Makeover” and "The Millionaire Mind".

Hello my name is Rich Boucher and I am excited to introduce myself to the bigger pockets community.